Cognos to Host Executive Seminar on Importance of Web Services Architecture

– Will showcase how organizations can use a highly scalable Web services architecture to confidently deploy BI solutions –

Burlington, MA, May 4, 2005 - Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management (CPM), today announced it will host “The Web Services Imperative: Modern BI Architectures” – on Tuesday, May 10 th at 2:00 p.m. EDT.  This executive Web seminar will showcase the critical importance of a Web Services-based architecture to modern business intelligence solutions, featuring a presentation by Bill Hostmann, Vice President of Gartner, Inc.

In many BI implementations, research shows that a large part of the cost of ownership is the time and effort associated with duplicating existing enterprise infrastructure in the business intelligence environment – including duplicating security, recreating metadata, and building a new portal.  During the seminar, attendees will learn how to eliminate duplication and cost by leveraging existing infrastructure, and why using a scalable Web Services architecture allows organizations to confidently deploy business intelligence that meets the broadest range of user needs, both present and future.

Through its modern Web Services architecture, Cognos offers a powerful business intelligence solution that meets the needs of today’s enterprise business intelligence deployments.  The Cognos architecture leverages core Web application technology including J2EE, SAP NetWeaver, and the Microsoft .Net framework, together with modern, open SOAP, XML, and WSDL standards.  Additionally, an open data strategy broadly leverages existing investments companies have made in data assets and data integration strategies, including Enterprise Information Integration (EII) and Extract, Transform and Load (ETL). 

“Our Web Services strategy demonstrates why we believe Cognos is the leader in BI – offering a modern, built-from-the-ground-up Web services architecture, together with the data flexibility and breadth that customers are seeking,” saidJennifer Francis, Cognos vice president of business intelligence.  “The foundation for our success with Cognos ReportNet™, it was designed specifically for enterprise-scale BI, providing increased efficiency and business agility.  It provides a powerful and sustainable path to companies that wish to realize the cost benefits associated with the standardization of enterprise reporting and business intelligence.” 

To register for this seminar, please visit:  http://www.cognos.com/techtalk/architecture/.

About Cognos:
Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management, delivers software and services that help companies drive, monitor and understand corporate performance.

Cognos delivers the next level of competitive advantage - Corporate Performance Management (CPM) - achieved through the strategic application of BI on an enterprise scale. Our integrated CPM solution helps customers drive performance through planning; monitor performance through scorecarding; and understand performance through business intelligence.

Cognos serves more than 23,000 customers in over 135 countries. Cognos enterprise business intelligence and performance management solutions and services are also available from more than 3,000 worldwide partners and resellers. For more information, visit the Cognos Web site at http://www.cognos.com.